Yearly Archives: 2018

A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 17

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By Kazumi Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura. Released in Japan as “To Aru Majutsu no Index” by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

Last time I mentioned that Fiamma of the Right’s plans for England sounded a bit like Brexit. Little did I know that the feeling would triple as I read this new volume, set almost entirely in the United Kingdom. The villains are trying to start a war with France – well, in reality France is a proxy for the Roman Orthodox and Russian Catholic Churches, but you know what I mean – and are discussing what happens with trading rights and shipping in the UK and sounding an awful lot like Theresa May, to be honest. This is entirely coincidental given that this book came out in Japan in March 2009, but it does given the danger a little extra frisson of reality. Which is more than can be said for Kamachi’s rewriting of English history – Henry VIII’s motives for breaking off with the Roman Orthodox church are made a lot more noble and grand than reality, and I suspect the court are telling Touma a sanitized version of the truth.

Introduced in this book: Queen Elizard, Princess Limeia, Princess Carissa, and Princess Vilian, who was in the last book but is officially named here. We also meet all of New Light, a Norse-based magical group and terrorist organization, which like most other organizations in Index has four people in it: Lesser, Bayloupe, Florice, and Lancis. Yes, it’s romanized as Lesser, so any fans of the fan spelling who are still getting the official version will be annoyed once more, as Lesser is honestly the only one of these four you’ll need to remember going forward. Timeline-wise, we’re about five days after the events of Book 16 – Itsuwa has returned to the UK, though after taking the time to heal up and briefly discuss the upcoming culture festival, Touma and Index join her. This means this is another magic-heavy book, so don’t expect lots of Mikoto here, though she at least does discuss Touma’s memory loss with him briefly.

This is the first volume of a two-parter, and so as you can imagine the book consists mostly of everything going wrong for our heroes. By the end of the book Index is captured and knocked out (punched in the stomach, no less), Kaori has just been beaten so badly that everyone is sneering at her, Agnes’s Roman Orthodox nuns are mostly captured aside from the ones whose names we can remember, and two of our supposed heroes are in reality betraying everyone – for the good of the nation, of course. Lesser (who is a hoot in general, you can see why she’ll be back) picks on Touma for being there at all, noting that as the only Japanese guy in the midst of a fight between UK denizens, he can’t possibly understand why anyone is doing anything. Of course, I have no doubt that is also Touma’s strength. We also see a bunch of former villains who are now theoretically on the side of good, also showing off – Sherry and Oriana, to be precise. At times Index reads very much like, well, an index, making sure that everyone gets a cameo.

So overall decent volume, though I will pick on the translation just a bit – I’m not sure if Laura Stuart’s English is supposed to be as bad as her Japanese, but a lot of the ‘slang’ in this book reads very badly if we’re meant to assume she is British. On the bright side, while we do have more of Kamachi’s attempts at being funny, one of them actually succeeds this time – the sequence in Buckingham Palace, starting with Touma, Index and the scones and progressing through the introduction of the Queen is very well done, and very funny. I tip my hat. (It also provided the cover image.) I also approve of one translation convention – everyone in charge in England refers to Index as “the Index” and treats her exactly like you would an encyclopedia, not a person. It’s very obvious and very well done. Index fans will want to pick this up, especially now that the third season of the anime has shown itself to be rushing everything so badly. You’ll want to see what actually happens.

Sword Art Online: Progressive, Vol. 5

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By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

There are several reasons that I think that Reki Kawahara is happier writing the Progressive novels, but the primary one is that he really just loves writing Kirito and Asuna falling deeply in love with each other – something we get quite a bit of here. He admits in the afterword that he’s not entirely sure how this is going to mesh with canon – in the original series, Kirito and Asuna act like they’re casual acquaintances when we first see them. But as I’ve said before, I think he knows he doesn’t have to worry about that till about Floor 10, and they’re only on the sixth. What’s more, this is Progressive’s first two-parter – which is likely why it’s shorter than usual. If you dislike Kirito (it’s all his POV again) or don’t care for Kirito and Asuna as a couple, the entire Progressive series is skippable for you. For the rest of us, it’s pretty fun and adorable – well, mostly adorable. Those player killers keep coming back, and they’re after our heroes.

I had to remind myself what was going on in the plot, as it’s been two full years since the last volume (fortunately, we will have less of a wait for the next one). The new floor consists mainly of puzzles to be solved, such as sudoku or the sliding pieces puzzles. Kirito and Asuna try to breeze through the main quest in the town, helped along by Kirito’s beta knowledge, but a spanner is thrown into the works when they’re captured while under a paralysis spell (as part of the quest they’re doing) by Morte and his partner, who are ready for some killing. Kirito and Asuna are really starting to fear for their lives here – especially Kirito, who’s been attacked multiple times. Things aren’t being helped by the ongoing war between the two lead factions, and Kirito attempting to deftly not support either side. Fortunately, the two of them do also have their bond with Kizmel and the elves, and can (mostly) safely relax in her presence – even if that means sharing a hot spring. And a bed.

It does have to be said, this volume of Progressive also contains an awful lot of game mechanics. I’ve never been overly fond of these sort of things in light novels, and I’m not fond of it here. But power through the endless pages of Kirito describing how his sword movements work or which stat boost he should get next, because the meat of the book is Kirito and Asuna’s relationship. They’re simply cute, and honestly I think the only think holding them back right now is the strange sense of self-hatred Kirito gets about himself as a romantic lead (yes, I am aware how ironic this is given the SAO franchise as a whole) and Asuna’s embarrassment, though by the end of the book she not only “bundles” with him in a queen sized bed (in the Scottish sense of the word) but they’re connecting pinkies as they sleep so that they’re always aware of each other’s presence. Sword Art Online Progressive is, at heart, a love story.

It’s also only half done – there’s no cliffhanger, and the author admits this is basically “I wrote too long a book, so they cut it in half”. I’m definitely ready for the next half, and more shipping tease. Oh yes, and more Argo! She was barely in this one.

Wonderland, Vol. 1

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By Yugo Ishikawa. Released in Japan by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Big Comic Superior. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Molly Rabbit. Adapted by Marykate Jasper.

I have to admit, I did not buy this manga for the premise. Horror is something I tend to be very wary of, and this read very much like it would be a “watch people get gorily murdered in visually arresting ways”. And, well, it is. But it’s the visually arresting part that kept me reading on. The author has been doing seinen stuff for years, ranging from action titles like Fighting Beauty Wulong to seinen skeeze like Yoiko, about an elementary school girl with the body of a fully grown adult. Lately, though, he’s been specializing in weird horror, and this certainly falls under that. It also falls under something that North America may have been growing sick of in the last few years – Alice in Wonderland take-offs. Unlike most that we see, there’s no Mad Hatter or Red Queen here, though, as it takes one premise – shrinking down to tiny size – and runs with it.

Our heroine is… not the girl on the cover. Instead it’s Yukko, a typical teen girl who wakes one morning to find that she’s shrunk down to the size of a doll. Her pet dog, now much bigger than she is, seems OK with this. Her pet cat… sees her as a tasty mouse, it would appear. Indeed, by the time Yukko gets her bearings and attempts to deal with this, both of her parents have been murdered by said cat. She tries to get out and get help… only to find the entire prefecture is suffering the same problem – they’re all tiny. Now she has to team up with other survivors and figure out how to remedy this… though that may take a backseat to just surviving, as the cats of the neighborhood REALLY love to beat these tiny humans to death. And then there’s Alice, who IS the girl on the cover. She seems to have animal ears, speaks at first in an alien tongue, and shows up mysteriously with no explanation. As the teaser for the second volume asks, who is she?

The story and character development here are, it has to be said, not great. Yukko is plucky, Alice is weird, and I really liked the dog, but for the most part these people are here to react to the scenery. But what scenery it is. The artist does a good job of showing off tiny humans vs. real-sized objects and animals, and how it’s become a matter of life and death almost immediately. I’d still call it a horror title – there’s lots of gory deaths here, and you spend a lot of the book waiting for the next she to drop. But the hint of a VAST GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY makes me think it will end up more of a thriller than anything else, with Yukko and Alice teaming up to try to learn why this happened in the first place. I’m not sure if I’m into Wonderland for the long haul (it’s 6 volumes total), but this is a compelling enough start. Plus, let’s be honest, Big Comic Superior? When’s the last time we saw a title from there? This deserves your support for that alone.